LONDON (Reuters) – Brent crude oil prices hit their lowest in more than 11 years on Monday, driven down by a relentless rise in global supply that looks set to outpace demand again next year.

Oil production is running close to record highs and, with more barrels poised to enter the market from nations such as Iran, the United States and Libya, the price of crude is set for its largest monthly percentage decline in seven years.

Brent futures (LCOc1) fell by as much as 2 percent to a low of $36.05 a barrel on Monday, their weakest since July 2004, and were down 49 cents at $36.39 by 1332 GMT.

While consumers have enjoyed lower fuel prices, the world’s richest oil exporters have been forced to revalue their currencies, sell off assets and even issue debt for the first time in years as they struggle to repair their finances.

OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, will stick with its year-old policy of compensating for lower prices with higher production, and shows no signs of wavering, even though lower prices are painful to its poorer members.

The price of oil has halved over the past year, dealing a blow to economies of oil producers such as Nigeria, which faces its worst crisis in years, and Venezuela, which has been plunged into deep recession.

Even wealthy Gulf Arab states have been hit. Last week Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain raised interest rates as they scrambled to protect their currencies.

NO LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

“With OPEC not in any mood to cut production … it does mean you are not going to get any rebalancing any time soon,” Energy Aspects chief oil analyst Amrita Sen said.

“Having said that, long term of course, the lower prices are today, the rebalancing will become even stronger and steeper, because of the capex (oil groups’ capital expenditure) cutbacks … but you’re not going to see that until end-2016.”

Reflecting the determination among the biggest producers to woo buyers at any cost, Russia now pumps oil at a post-Soviet high of more than 10 million barrels per day (bpd), while OPEC output is close to record levels above 31.5 million bpd.

Oil market liquidity usually evaporates ahead of the holiday period, meaning that intra-day price moves can become exaggerated.

On average, in the last 15 years, December is the month with least trading volume, which tends to be just 85 percent of that in May, the month which sees most volume change hands.

Brent crude prices have dropped by nearly 19 percent this month, their steepest fall since the collapse of failed U.S. bank Lehman Brothers in October 2008.

U.S. crude futures (CLc1) were down 26 cents at $34.47 a barrel, their lowest since 2009.

“Really, I wouldn’t like to be in the shoes of an oil exporter getting into 2016. It’s not exactly looking as if there is light at the end of the tunnel any time soon,” Saxo Bank senior manager Ole Hansen said.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS.N) believes it could take a drop to as little as $20 a barrel for supply to adjust to demand.

Thanks to the shale revolution, the U.S. has been pumping a lot of oil on the cheap, helping to drive down prices to six-year lows and to fill up storage tanks. Indeed, we’re running out of places to put it.

LOOK OUT BELOW

The U.S. has 490 million barrels of oil in storage, enough to keep the country running smoothly for nearly a month, without any added oil production or imports. That inventory doesn’t include the government’s own Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to be used in the now highly unlikely event of an oil shortage. Nor does it include oil waiting at sea for higher prices. The lower 48 states also boast about 4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in storage — a far bigger cushion than Americans have needed so far during a very warm winter.

For their part, OECD countries (including the U.S.) have nearly 3 billion barrels of oil in storage — or enough to keep factories lit and houses heated in those countries for two months, cumulatively, without added production or imports.

The glut is going to continue worldwide unless some major producers stop pumping. OPEC announced recently that it was abandoning output limits.

So what happens when there’s too much oil to store? Producers will try to rid themselves of it by cutting prices. In that scenario, the price would plummet so far that some producers would shutter their wells altogether — which is, perhaps, the only way that the oil glut will ease.

Our Services

In search of tailor-made solutions

Our core business lies in the fields of formation/administration of global corporations , trusts,foundations , asset safeguarding and sucession arrangements

We compile legally protected and tax optimising concepts and find the optimal solution for you.

My rant – the curse of Cassandra :

Cassandra, daughter of the king and queen, in the temple of Apollo, exhausted from practising, is said to have fallen asleep – when Apollo wished to embrace her, she did not afford the opportunity of her body. On account of which thing :

when she prophesied true things, she was not believed.

I have written :

GET YOUR PORTFOLIO THE HELL OUT OF ENERGY : PRAYER ISN’T AN INVESTMENT STRATEGY Dec.17,2015

I am very happy for the call in natural gas prices – out at $12 and into oil. When oil was above $100 we lessened positions and that is our saving grace in the past two weeks. We are not bottom feeders and will wait for a turn in the market before reentering drillers or producers.

On Friday November 27th, crude oil prices dropped to below $72 and the slide has continued into the weekend, with Brent crude oil at $70.15 as I write this post. Shares of major oil companies traded down on Friday. Our former energy sector holdings are down another between 4% and 11%, including SDRL, which dropped another 8% following Wednesday’s 23% plunge..

OIL Sector Update Dec. 20,2015

Official data show Saudis shipped more crude amid global glut

Saudi output exceeded 10 million barrels a day for ninth month

Saudi Crude Exports Rose in October to Most in Four Months

Saudi Arabia boosted crude exports in October to the highest level in four months, as the world’s biggest oil exporter added barrels to a worldwide supply glut that has contributed to a slump in prices.

Saudi shipments rose to 7.364 million barrels a day in the month from 7.111 million in September, according to the latest figures from the Joint Organisations Data Initiative. The monthly exports were the most since June and 7 percent higher than in October 2014, the data released on Sunday showed. JODI is an industry group supervised by the Riyadh-based International Energy Forum.

Saudi Arabia produced 10.28 million barrels a day in October, up from 10.23 million in September, the JODI figures showed.

Saudi Arabia led OPEC to decide on Dec. 4 to abandon the group’s limits on output amid efforts to squeeze higher-cost producers such as Russia and U.S. shale drillers out of the market. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had set a production target almost without interruption since 1982, though member countries often ignored and pumped well above it. The oversupply has pushed the price of benchmark Brent crude to almost a seven-year low and triggered the worst slump in the energy industry since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Brent for February settlement dropped 18 cents, or 0.5 percent, on Friday to $36.88 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The crude grade has tumbled 36 percent this year.

Saudi Arabia pumped 10.33 million barrels a day in November, exceeding 10 million barrels in daily output for the ninth consecutive month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Saudis have stuck to their one-year-old view that any output cuts won’t succeed in supporting prices unless big producers outside OPEC, including Russia and Mexico, also participate.

Crude exports fell in October from Iraq and Kuwait, OPEC’s second- and fourth-biggest producers, respectively, according to JODI. Iraq shipped 2.708 million barrels a day, down from 3.052 million barrels a day in September for the country’s fourth consecutive monthly decline, the data showed. Kuwait’s exports dropped to 1.905 million barrels a day in October from 2.008 million in the previous month, JODI said.

Iran, the fifth-biggest supplier in OPEC, exported 1.395 million barrels a day of crude in October, a marginal increase from 1.39 million in September, JODI figures showed

Join in on the portfolio profits of Jack A. Bass Managed Accounts:

Fees : 1 % annual set up and a performance bonus of 20 % – only if we perform.

Minimum Annual Return Guarantee 6% before we take a fee

You can withdraw your funds monthly if you require an income stream.

Contact information:

To learn more about portfolio management ,asset protection, trusts ,offshore company formation and structure for your business interests (at no cost or obligation)

Email

jackabass@gmail.com OR

info@jackbassteam.com OR

Call Jack direct at 604-858-3202

10:00 – 4:00 Monday to Friday Pacific Time ( same time zone as Los Angeles).

Similar to wise buying decisions, exiting certain underperformers at the right time helps maximize portfolio returns. Selling off losers can be difficult, but if both the share price and estimates are falling, it could be time to get rid of the security before more losses hit your portfolio.

The U.S. E&P sector could be on the cusp of massive defaults and bankruptcies so staggering they pose a serious threat to the U.S. economy, according to Paul Merolli, a senior editor and correspondent for Energy Intelligence, an energy sector news and analysis aggregator. Merolli’s report calls out the over-leveraged, under-hedged U.S. E&P sector, which has been trying to keep up appearances over the past 12 months by slashing operating costs and capex to keep production costs lower than oil prices.

But experts believe that lower costs and improving efficiency won’t be enough for the sector as it grapples with some $200 billion-plus in high-yield debt, which the U.S. E&P sector used to finance the shale oil boom. According to Standard and Poor’s, there have already been 19 U.S. energy sector defaults so far in 2015, while another 15 companies have filed for bankruptcy. The default category also includes companies that have entered into “distressed exchanges” with their creditors.

Moreover, a Nov. 24 report from S&P Capital IQ titled “A Cautionary Climate” shows that the total assets and liabilities of U.S. energy companies filing for bankruptcy protection have grown in each quarter of 2015, and the third quarter was no exception with assets totaling more than $6.2 billion and liabilities totaling more than $8.9 billion. Each quarter of 2015 was larger than the total for all U.S. energy bankruptcies in 2014.

U.S. E&P Sector: Junk rating

According to Energy Intelligence, Standard & Poor’s applies ratings to around 100 E&P firms. Of these, 77% now have high-yield or “junk” ratings of BB+ or lower, 63% are rated B+ or worse, and 31% or 51 companies are rated below B-. Companies rated B- or below are effectively on life support, while those rated C+ are “maybe looking at a year, year-and-a-half before they default or file for bankruptcy,” according to Thomas Watters, managing director of S&P’s oil and gas ratings, speaking to Energy Intelligence.

High-yield E&Ps are expected to see negative free cash flow of $10 billion during 2016, even after all the recent capex cuts and efficiency measures. Unfortunately, capital markets are closing rapidly to new E&P debt issues. Last year, the U.S. E&P sector raised $29 billion from 44 issuances of public debt in 2014, but this year only $13 billion has been raised across 23 issuances, almost all of which occurred during the first half of the year.

What’s more, the U.S. E&P sector is woefully under-hedged. Energy Intelligence’s data shows that small producers have 27% of their oil production hedged at an average price of $77/bbl, mid-sized firms have 26% hedged at $69, and large producers have just 4% hedged at $63.

U.S. E&P sector: a final lifeline

It is believed that the U.S. E&P sector will really start to cave in April when banks are due to start their next review of borrowing bases. Borrowing bases are redeterminedevery six months, and banks use market oil prices to calculate the value of company oil reserves, which companies are then able to borrow against.

Haynes and Boone’s Borrowing Base Survey is predicting an average cut of 39% to borrowing bases when the next round of revaluations take place. In September, The Financial Times reported on a research note from Bank of America which pointed out that only a fifth of “higher-quality” energy companies had used up more than half of their borrowing base capacity. For junk-rated companies, however, it’s a different picture. Citi points out that only 21% of the junk-rated energy companies it covers have any borrowing base capacity left at all.

So with borrowing bases set to fall at the beginning of next year and capital market access drying up, it looks as if many oil companies are going to find their liquidity deteriorating significantly going forward. Another source of concern for E&Ps and their lenders are price-related impairments and asset write-downs which have already amounted to $70.1 billion so far this year, compared to the $94.3 billion total for the previous 10-year period of 2005-14. And there could be further write-downs on the horizon:

“Year-to-date, there has been $70.1 billion in asset write-downs in 2015, approaching the $94.3 billion total for the previous 10-year period of 2005-14, according to Stuart Glickman, head of S&P Capital’s oil equities research. And he expects even more write-downs and impairments to emerge at year-end. “Companies are putting this off for a long as they can. You don’t want to be negotiating in capital markets with a weakened hand,”

“Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest US independent producers, shocked earlier this month by indicating a $13 billion reduction in the so-called PV-10, or “present value,” of its oil and gas reserves to $7 billion. Had Chesapeake used 12-month futures strip prices — instead of Securities and Exchange Commission-mandated trailing 12-month prices for PV values — the value would’ve fallen to $4 billion.” — Source: Energy Intelligence, “Is Debt Bomb About to Blow Up US Shale?“

This conclusion is also supported by research from S&P Capital IQ:

“Using data from SNL Financial, we looked at natural gas-focused companies across the value chain to see whether there is a relationship between their level of revolver usage and their forward multiples. Within this subset of companies, exploration and production (E&P) companies have the greatest usage of their revolving credit facilities — 57% on average, excluding those with either no revolving credit or no usage on their revolving credit lines. As of late September 2015, this sub-industry also had a forward EBITDA multiple of about 6.2x.” — Source: S&P Capital IQ, “A Cautionary Climate.”

E&P sector waiting for a bailout

All in all, it looks as if the U.S. E&P sector has a rough year ahead of it, but for strong companies with investment-grade credit ratings, next year could become an “M&A playland” according to Energy Intelligence. The six-largest integrated majors together hold a war chest of some $500 billion, and there’s a further $100 billion in private equity sitting on the sidelines.

Whatever happens, it looks as if the U.S. E&P sector is about to undergo a period of significant change.

Oil dropped to the lowest in more than four months in New York on expectation a global glut that drove prices into a bear market will be prolonged.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. estimates the global crude oversupply is running at 2 million barrels a day and storage may be filled by the fall, forcing the market to adjust, analysts including Jeffrey Currie said in a report dated Thursday. U.S. crude supplies remain about 100 million barrels above the five-year seasonal average, Energy Information Administration data on Wednesday showed.

Oil moved into a bear market in July on signs the global surplus will persist as the U.S. pumps near the fastest rate in three decades and the largest OPEC members produced record volumes. The Bloomberg Commodity Index, which fell almost 11 percent in July, has resumed its decline.

“Prices are under pressure because we’ve got more and more crude coming out of the ground,” Michael Corcelli, chief investment officer of hedge fund Alexander Alternative Capital LLC in Miami, said by phone. “Questions about storage capacity have already been brought up.”

WTI for September delivery fell 49 cents, or 1.1 percent, to settle at $44.66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It’s the lowest close since March 19. Prices are down 16 percent this year.

Supply, Demand

Brent for September settlement dropped 7 cents to end the session at $49.52 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. It touched $48.88, the lowest since Jan. 30. The European benchmark crude closed at a $4.86 premium to WTI.

“It’s the familiar theme of oversupply and shaky demand,” John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, a New York-based hedge fund, said by phone. “The negative reaction to yesterday’s inventory report set up for another drop today. We clearly have more than ample supply.”

About 170 million barrels of crude and fuel have been added to storage tanks and 50 million to floating storage globally since January, according to the Goldman report. Global oil oversupply has risen from 1.8 million barrels a day in the first half of 2015, Goldman said. The balance between supply and demand may only be restored by 2016, Goldman said.

Shoulder Months

“While we maintain our near-term WTI target of $45 a barrel, we want to emphasize that the risks remain substantially skewed to the downside, particularly as we enter the shoulder months this autumn,” the Goldman analysts said.

Crude supplies in the U.S. fell 4.4 million barrels to 455.3 million last week, the EIA said. Output expanded by 52,000 barrels a day to 9.47 million a day, the first gain in four weeks. Refinery utilization rose by 1 percentage point to 96.1 percent, the highest level since 2005.

Inventories of distillate fuel, a category that includes diesel and heating oil, rose 709,000 barrels to 144.8 million, the most since February 2012, the EIA report showed.

Ultra low sulfur diesel for September delivery rose 1.14 cents, or 0.7 percent, to settle at $1.5499 a gallon in New York. On Monday it closed at its lowest level since July 2009.

“Diesel isn’t up because of the fundamentals,” Tom Finlon, Jupiter, Florida-based director of Energy Analytics Group LLC, said by phone. “It’s getting support from the upcoming refinery-maintenance season, the harvest season and anticipation of thermal needs later this year.”

The Bloomberg Commodity Index of 22 raw materials dropped 0.3 percent. Eighteen of the components, which include gold, have declined at least 20 percent from recent closing highs, meeting the common definition of a bear market.

Morgan Stanley has been pretty pessimistic about oil prices in 2015,

drawing comparisons to the some of the worst oil slumps of the past three decades. The current downturn could even rival the iconic price crash of 1986, analysts had warned—but definitely no worse.

This week, a revision: It could be much worse.

Until recently, confidence in a strong recovery for oil prices—and oil companies—had been pretty high, wrote analysts including Martijn Rats and Haythem Rashed, in a report to investors yesterday. That confidence was based on four premises, they said, and only three have proven true.

1. Demand will rise: Check

In theory: The crash in prices that started a year ago should stimulate demand. Cheap oil means cheaper manufacturing, cheaper shipping, more summer road trips.

In practice: Despite a softening Chinese economy, global demand has indeed surged by about 1.6 million barrels a day over last year’s average, according to the report.

2. Spending on new oil will fall: Check

In theory: Lower oil prices should force energy companies to cut spending on new oil supplies, and the cost of drilling and pumping should decline.

In practice: Sure enough, since October the number of rigs actively drilling for new oil around the world has declined by about 42 percent. More than 70,000 oil workers have lost their jobs globally, and in 2015 alone listed oil companies have cut about $129 billion in capital expenditures.

3. Stock prices remain low: Check

In theory: While oil markets rebalance themselves, stock prices of oil companies should remain cheap, setting the stage for a strong rebound.

In practice: Yep. The oil majors are trading near 35-year lows, using two different methods of valuation.

4. Oil supply will drop: Uh-oh

In theory: With strong demand for oil and less money for drilling and exploration, the global oil glut should diminish. Let the recovery commence.

In practice: The opposite has happened. While U.S. production has leveled off since June, OPEC has taken up the role of market spoiler.

OPEC Production Surges in 2015

Source: Morgan Stanley Research, Bloomberg

For now, Morgan Stanley is sticking with its original thesis that prices will improve, largely because OPEC doesn’t have much more spare capacity to fill and because oil stocks have already been hammered.

But another possibility is that the supply of new oil coming from outside the U.S. may continue to increase as sanctions against Iran dissolve and if the situation in Libya improves, the Morgan Stanley analysts said. U.S. production could also rise again. A recovery is less certain than it once was, and the slump could last for three years or more—”far worse than in 1986.”

“In that case,” they wrote, “there would be little in history that could be a guide” for what’s to come.

Half of the 41 fracking companies operating in the U.S. will be dead or sold by year-end because of slashed spending by oil companies, an executive with Weatherford International Plc said.
There could be about 20 companies left that provide hydraulic fracturing services, Rob Fulks, pressure pumping marketing director at Weatherford, said in an interview Wednesday at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston. Demand for fracking, a production method that along with horizontal drilling spurred a boom in U.S. oil and natural gas output, has declined as customers leave wells uncompleted because of low prices.
There were 61 fracking service providers in the U.S., the world’s largest market, at the start of last year. Consolidation among bigger players began with Halliburton Co. announcing plans to buy Baker Hughes Inc. in November for $34.6 billion and C&J Energy Services Ltd. buying the pressure-pumping business of Nabors Industries Ltd.
Weatherford, which operates the fifth-largest fracking operation in the U.S., has been forced to cut costs “dramatically” in response to customer demand, Fulks said. The company has been able to negotiate price cuts from the mines that supply sand, which is used to prop open cracks in the rocks that allow hydrocarbons to flow.
Oil companies are cutting more than $100 billion in spending globally after prices fell. Frack pricing is expected to fall as much as 35 percent this year, according to PacWest, a unit of IHS Inc.
While many large private-equity firms are looking at fracking companies to buy, the spread between buyer and seller pricing is still too wide for now, Alex Robart, a principal at PacWest, said in an interview at CERAWeek.
Fulks declined to say whether Weatherford is seeking to acquire other fracking companies or their unused equipment.
“We go by and we see yards are locked up and the doors are closed he said. “It’s not good for equipment to park anything, whether it’s an airplane, a frack pump or a car.”

“You’re not going to lose anything by waiting,”

(Bloomberg) — When Whiting Petroleum Corp. put itself up for sale this month, the oil industry appeared on the brink of a deal surge that would dramatically redraw the energy landscape.

Instead, Whiting decided it was better off selling shares and borrowing more money to surmount a cash shortfall brought on by tumbling crude prices. The lesson? Takeover fever driven by the oil-market crash is yet to really heat up because share prices haven’t fallen as fast or hard as crude.It may be later this year or early 2016 before buyout candidates resign themselves to a long-term market slump and lower valuations, said David Zusman, chief investment officer at Talara Capital Management LLC.“Nobody wants to catch a falling knife,” said Chris Pultz, portfolio manager of a merger-arbitrage fund at Kellner Capital in New York. “The last thing anyone wants to do is price a deal now, only to have oil fall to $30 a barrel later on. There’s a lot of skittishness.”
Whiting, a potentially juicy prize as the biggest oil producer in North Dakota’s Bakken shale, isn’t the only one fending off bargain seekers. Tullow Oil Plc, an Africa-focused group seen as a perennial takeover target, earlier this month tapped lenders to restore its finances. In North America, Encana Corp., Noble Energy Inc., RSP Permian Inc. and Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. have sold new shares, effectively blocking deals.Lesser Evils
For oil producers squeezed by heavy debt and a collapse in crude prices below $50, issuing new shares and rolling over old loans, when given the choice, remain lesser evils than a corporate fire sale. So far this year, the oil and natural gas sector has seen deals worth nearly $1.9 billion, the lowest quarterly figure in at least five years, according to Bloomberg data. In the first quarter of 2014, energy deal making reached $27.9 billion.
“Every time there’s a market downturn, you always have this chorus of suggested interest in takeovers,” said Vincent Piazza, global energy research coordinator at Bloomberg Intelligence in New York. “In reality, few deals of any consequence occur.”
A disconnect between company valuations and the crude market is adding to buyers’ uncertainty. Since Dec. 15, stock values in an index of 20 U.S. producers have bounced back an average 7 percent, even as oil fell another 15 percent to $47.51 a barrel on Tuesday.Second Half
The price crash was so swift that many companies may be waiting for the market to stabilize before agreeing to major acquisitions, said Osmar Abib, who leads the global energy practice for Credit Suisse Group AG.
“You’re going to see a much bigger flow of announcements in the second half of the year because by then, people will have adjusted to the new environment,” Abib said Tuesday in an interview.
Buyers and sellers need time to find common ground on valuations, Scott Sheffield, chief executive officer at Pioneer Natural Resources Co., said Tuesday in an interview at the Howard Weil Energy Conference in New Orleans.
“It’s going to take at least mid-summer or late in the year for oil prices to bottom and to start going up again and for people to develop their own views,” Sheffield said.
Much will depend on where oil prices settle. Sheffield said he sees a rebound to $60 a barrel by the end of the year, with prices ranging from $60 to $80 over the next five years. A $60 price over the long term will lead to more consolidation, he said.
Rising Rates
Another possible deal-driver: the availability of capital from loans and equity offerings may dry up, particularly if the U.S. Federal Reserve increases interest rates.
Dealmaking hasn’t completely ground to a halt. Whiting, based in Denver, paid $1.8 billion in stock and assumed $2.2 billion in debt in December to close on the purchase of Bakken rival Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp., a deal announced in July, when crude was still above $100 a barrel.
That same month, Spain’s Repsol SA agreed to pay $8.3 billion in cash and assume $4.66 billion in debt for Canada’s Talisman Energy Inc. The transaction has yet to close.
Companies that own drilling rigs and provide equipment and field services to the producers are most prone to consolidation during bear markets, Piazza said. During the last crude slump in 2009-10, 247 oilfield-services deals with a combined value of $32 billion dwarfed the 51 transactions among oil producers, which amounted to just $6.6 billion, he said.Blackstone, CarlyleMoney is certainly waiting in the wings for a flurry of acquisitions. The world’s four largest buyout firms, including Blackstone Group LP and Carlyle Group LP, have amassed a $30 billion war chest for deals.
“This is one of the best periods, if not the best, to invest in global energy,” said Marcel van Poecke, head of Carlyle International Energy Partners.
Piazza of Bloomberg Intelligence said the biggest oil companies are more likely to snatch up individual assets and business units of smaller rivals, rather than acquire entire corporations. Exxon Mobil Corp. is among buyers indicating they’re particularly interested in acquiring drilling assets that expand on their existing oilfields.
For those companies with an appetite for wholesale corporate takeovers, the best approach may be to bide their time, said Jack A. Bass tax strategist .
“You’re not going to lose anything by waiting,” Jack A. Bass advises clients. “You’ll probably get it cheaper a few months from now.”